The Dream of Oceans and Sunken Cities
by Shikijika
Summary: Blaine goes into culture shock when he transfers to McKinley. Emma goes into culture shock when she finds someone who doesn't just want to steal all of her pamphlets. Blaine/Kurt focus.


This is way too long and disjointed but I really like what came out and I just _had _to write it. Maybe I'm just way too excited for the prospect of Blaine interacting with all the McKinley folk, and I've been wanting to write Emma for ages anyway but never quite found an excuse. Her and Blaine play off each other surprisingly well! I was going to write more, actually, but then it just started getting _really silly_ and it'd have to be an entirely different fic, honestly.  
>Blaine sings 'The Lifting' by R.E.M., by the by, so the lyrics and title are taken from there.<p>

* * *

><p>Blaine had really thought he could do this, endlessly reassured by the comfort of Dalton and the unspoken strength he sees every day in Kurt. However, being around someone – loving someone, he knows, hidden in some feeling he can't-won't voice just yet – infinitely courageous does not make you braver in kind. Kurt is so overwhelmingly confident and sharp and Blaine feels a little like he is stepping vainly in his boyfriend's shadow, coming to McKinley like this because of some past nightmare he should no longer run from. But Kurt smiles and takes his hands and says <em>we'll do this together<em> and Blaine cannot ever say no to that.

So much for courage, Blaine thinks darkly as he slouches in the threadbare chair in the guidance counsellor's office and closes himself off with folded arms and no eye contact. The woman sitting across from him – Miss Pillsbury, who was once Mrs Pillsbury-Howell if the crude scored-out sign on the door is accurate – is wide-eyed and somewhat frightening just to look at, as though if Blaine narrows his eyes a little he will break her. She is quite beautiful, in a fragile, deer-like sort of way; and he understands why Kurt is always talking about Mr Schuester's infatuation with her (and why Kurt approves of her fashion sense, timeless and perfect as it is).

She's probably wondering if he's okay.

He is not, as much as Blaine would like to pretend otherwise; his fingers tremble traitorously if he moves them from the vice-grip on his biceps and his head is still swimming and his heart feels like he has just thrown himself through fire. That on top of the fact that he scared the shit out of Kurt for no reason other than a hideous over-reaction to something ridiculous and mundane, and that makes Blaine feel even worse So he tries to distract himself from the topic at hand and glances around the office. It's nice, for a public high school, with wide panelled windows surrounding the doors and a level of immaculate order so rigid it almost makes him feel bad for slouching. It reminds Blaine a little of his father's study, although that smelt more of dusty pages and faded cologne than industrial cleaner.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Miss Pillsbury says eventually, fingers curling and slipping over and under a pen, her tone measured and clinical in a way Blaine imagines pervades through every crevice of her life. He looks at her, finally, and sees no infuriating guardedness (_I'm sorry, Blaine, but we can't do anything about it with no evidence but your word_) or fake pity (_I understand what you're going through, but..._) in her expression.

"Not really," he says curtly, sitting up slightly but making no other movements. Blaine can feel the strength in his legs returning now, and then the soft vibrations of his cell in his jeans (Kurt, probably). "No offence, but I don't really... this isn't my kind of thing."

Miss Pillsbury smiles at him, and it's so genuine that Blaine almost moves to be surprised. "Would you believe me if I said that I get that all the time?" she says, glancing down at the desk and then back up at Blaine to continue. "I don't want to force you to talk about things you're uncomfortable with, Blaine. But that incident in the bathroom just now... I think you should at least have the option to voice your thoughts if you need to. That's what I'm here for."

And Blaine can't help but squirm at that, both out of a flaring embarrassment and the _yeah, right_ feeling he can't chase away. "Voicing my thoughts didn't do me any good at my old... at my older school," he says, a faded smile twitching his lips as he remembers that Dalton isn't his school any more. But he lets go of his arms and leans forward, his hands curling over his knees as he looks at the floor. "They pretty much told me that everything was my fault. Until I got the cra– can I...?" He pauses, his forehead creasing, looking up at Miss Pillsbury whose eyes widen slightly before she nods, almost imperceptible. "... Until I got the crap kicked out of me, but then I couldn't really come back after that."

Miss Pillsbury folds her arms across the desk, her eyes catching on a pile of gaudy yellow Post-Its that have managed to shift out of place. Blaine watches curiously as she breathes in sharply and tears her gaze away from the apparent disarray to look at him again. "Did the teachers at your old school say that?" she asks, and Blaine knows that that isn't really what she wanted to say.

"No. But I don't really think having the three biggest jocks in my grade beat the shit out of me and another guy in front of the school gates just for being there really meant that I was all that welcome." It comes out more bitter than he means it to, and he shifts awkwardly in his seat, moving his hands and interlacing his fingers. Miss Pillsbury is just looking at him, her head tilted slightly as though in deep thought. For some reason he can't quite pinpoint – perhaps he simply responds well to cautious silences – Blaine feels a little more relaxed, even through his heartbeat still drumming hard against his ribcage. So he keeps talking. "I just... I guess I'm not really over it yet, huh?"

"Well, I'm afraid I don't... really have any pamphlets for that..." Miss Pillsbury turns around as though to check, and Blaine peers at the titles of the ones she does have – Christ, what kind of an education system had he dropped himself into? 'DIVORCE: Why Your Parents Stopped Loving You'? (Huh. Maybe he should check that one out.)

Blaine grins suddenly. "That'd be a kinda specific pamphlet, wouldn't it? 'PARANOIA: Why Everyone Really Is Out To Get You' or something, right..." and he trails off, frown twisting his mouth and letting his eyes drop back to the floor. He _hates_ this, this vile crawling feeling all over his skin that had pressured him into being afraid when he just wants to be strong. Strong like Kurt; strong _for_ Kurt (because what is the point in him being here otherwise?). His chest tightens again and he has to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe in slowly like the nurse had said, thumb and middle finger moving to rub slowly along his forehead as he mindlessly repeats _don't_ over and over in silence because he doesn't need to do this again, freaking out in the corridor was hard enough – the image of three bulky guys in letterman jackets bobs up again, advancing towards him and fuck fuck _fuck_ he had needed to –

"Blaine? Blaine, are you alright?" And he flinches at her voice but the image flutters away, harmless, and Blaine finds himself trembling all over. It wasn't the same thing; it was different, now. He's not fifteen and vulnerable any more – he's comfortable with who he is, he knows that, Dalton helped him believe that. But that déj_à_ vu scenario back there had flooded his skull with a rush of memories and _feelings_ that he had mulled over and considered until they didn't hurt any more and he could put them somewhere he didn't need to look at them. The fact that it clearly hadn't worked is the worst thing of all.

"Sorry," he says, softly, his shoulders hunched and his arms tucked stiff into his sides with his hands pressed in the prayer position between his knees. He doesn't look up again; but Miss Pillsbury seems to decide that it's better for the both of them if they stay quiet for a while. Blaine is all too happy to oblige.

"Why don't you tell me about your day? Before the... whole thing today, at least," Miss Pillsbury says after a long period of silence that had the both of them staring off awkwardly in different directions, Blaine quietly perusing the monolith of primary colour-bound books on the shelves behind her and wondering if any of them had ever been opened. But Blaine brightens immediately at the thought – idle conversation is his speciality, a skill honed in a family where children are expected to act like adults or blend silently into the background. (Blaine is very good at the former, and sometimes, rarely, wishes he were better at the latter.)

"Today was interesting," he says, his back automatically straightening against the chair with only one arm crossing his stomach now. Miss Pillsbury watches him with an odd sort of curiosity in her gaze that Blaine thinks should probably be unsettling, but it is unexpected and so he continues, his posture significantly more relaxed along with his mind. "I signed up to audition for glee club, and when I turned around Coach Sylvester was standing behind me for some reason. She called me 'Wedges' and told me that she hoped I was the new janitor, since my eyebrows would come in handy for propping her office door open. Kurt says she's always like that; is she?"

Miss Pillsbury's lips thinned in the pause before she spoke, her elbows propping up on the desk allowing her fingers to steeple neatly together. Blaine wasn't sure if she was irritated or trying not to laugh. Both? "It... it certainly sounds like she's back to her old self again."

"Another thing I'll have to get used to," Blaine smiles, his tone dry. "The classes here are easier, too. I'm pretty sure that I've already gone over everything in my Calculus textbook last year at Dalton. And Mr Schuester's Spanish class are still having serious trouble with the past tense, so I don't think that's going to be much of a problem either."

Blaine's quite ready to keep talking, really, but Miss Pillsbury's eyebrows have furrowed slightly and her expression has changed, and he's not sure – _oh_. Heat creeps up his neck and flushes his cheeks and he tugs at his lip with his teeth. "... I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I didn't mean to offend you."

Although Miss Pillsbury's face lightens at his embarrassed apology, she shakes her head. "It's fine. You can be honest in here. It's in my job description to keep things confidential."

"... My affluent background is something worthy of keeping secret?"

She just smiles knowingly, which confuses Blaine immensely. "Of course it is, Blaine. If you want it to be. But maybe you should consider... not using the word 'affluent' if you want to keep it that way."

Well, she probably has a point there. Blaine considers this for a moment, face mimicking thoughtfulness until he worried that perhaps Miss Pillsbury would perceive it as mocking and stopped. Secrets. "I don't keep secrets," he says, a vague memory bubbling up in his mind. (His mom, her hands stroking through once-wild curls, perfume floral and cloying; telling him the truth is hard sometimes, but he needs to understand that it will all come together some day when he is old enough to appreciate it.) "I'm not very good at withholding the truth, anyway."

"Why do you think that?"

Blaine looks at her, eyes narrowing in a gesture flatly stating _I know what you're doing_, but he indulges her. So he convinces himself. "My mom's the kind of person who can tell when you're keeping something from her. Psychologist. It's easier to just tell her the truth, most of the time."

"Do you not have any secrets?" And this time Miss Pillsbury sounds a little wistful, almost, but Blaine is frowning at the ground again and doesn't pick up on it until he gets home, staring at the ceiling and compartmentalising his day (because then it is easier, to break it down so that he can understand and section it away).

"No," and it's true. He thinks. "Yes. No. ... I won't pretend that things didn't happen. But me not wanting to talk about something and my parents not wanting to talk about something are two completely different things."

Miss Pillsbury is looking at him with genuine curiosity and something else Blaine can't quite pinpoint, even while meeting her gaze. But she doesn't say anything, gives him space to breathe, and so he is happy to divulge a little more.

"It's not that my parents aren't accepting, or anything. They let me transfer to Dalton, let me transfer here even though they don't really understand why. They're... not bad parents at all," and as he speaks Blaine feels a little better, lighter in a way that he doesn't feel better when telling Kurt these things. Then he feels vulnerable and weak, because sometimes he still wants to feel like the mentor, and the mentor has dealt with his past and gotten over it in the way that he hasn't yet. But telling a guidance counsellor who doesn't claim that all of the shit he went through in freshman year was his own fault is... refreshing. Interesting. "But they'd rather I be gay somewhere else and not flaunt it in front of them. And I don't understand _why_."

Miss Pillsbury doesn't seem to know how to immediately respond to that, which is good, as Blaine absently watches her fiddle with the delicate chain around her neck, running her fingers down to a glittering owl brooch – he runs over what he has said in his head, a momentary panic settling in case he has said too much. (He hasn't.) "Well, maybe it's just going to take some time for them," she says eventually, straightening up as though proud of herself and tucking a stray lock of red hair behind her ear. "I think that maybe what happened to you at your old school hurt them more than they let you know. It's a hard thing to deal with. ... I would assume, I don't actually... have any children myself but I would guess that that would probably be quite difficult. Mhm."

"Maybe." Blaine shrugs non-committally, unwilling to shift the subject onto his parents any more than he already has because he's an idiot. "You ramble like that a lot."

"What? No, no, not really... it's nothing," she replies in a way that is so much more than nothing. Blaine raises his eyebrows and Miss Pillsbury looks even more flustered, cheeks turning pink and her head dropping slightly to focus on opening her desk drawer. Nothing shifts when she opens it and it's pretty clear that it's empty, but still she blinks at it for a moment too long before closing it again.

How odd, Blaine thinks, intrigued. Kurt had said something about all of the teachers at McKinley being 'victims of the life-long slushie facial that is William McKinley High' (Kurt indulges him and says it's cherry flavoured when Blaine asks, pressing soft kisses along his jawline), but other than Mr Schuester's bizarre buzzword teaching methods and Coach Sylvester's tendency to give every student a pseudo-insulting nickname he hadn't really thought much of it. "I was just making an observation," he says, slightly uncomfortable now that Miss Pillsbury seems to have taken his curiosity to heart. "... Are you okay?"

"Yes! Of course, I'm fine," she says breathlessly. "I suppose I should really be asking you that."

"You already asked me that."

"Oh."

Blaine fights the overwhelming urge to say _awkward _out loud. Instead, he checks the time (12:15, almost lunch), Miss Pillsbury checks the time (12:16, still almost lunch), and then they fidget out of time with each other.

"Can I sing to you, sometime?"

Blaine thinks that this is a perfectly valid proposition and doesn't understand why Miss Pillsbury starts stuttering and looking all flustered again. (She is a very strange person, is the only reason he can come up with. But it is fascinating, in the light of every guidance counsellor in his past with hard faces and exasperated one-sided discussions.) "I – um – what? Why would you want to sing to me, you're a student and even if your hair is quite similar sort of – I don't think that would be really that appropriate, ah..."

So he tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows slightly, only more questions raised by her response. "I'm just better at... singing about things than talking about them, and I guess we're not really getting anywhere with just me talking."

"Well, why don't you sing it in front of the glee club?"

And he freezes at that, but gives himself a second to rearrange his thoughts and come up with a glib smile and explanation. "I already sang my audition piece, and Kurt says if I try to monopolise all the solos he'll come to my house and criticise my wardrobe. I just don't think I can handle that."

"Oh," Miss Pillsbury says, and it sounds thoughtful despite itself. "What did you sing?"

"'Drops of Jupiter' by Train," Blaine says, nodding confidently. It was a good choice; a safe one, albeit one that made Kurt beam at him in a way that made Blaine's heart skip a beat and nearly forget the lyrics. "Then Puck ruined it by saying I was a much better singer when I wasn't trying to stick my tongue down Rachel's throat."

Silence and a deeply confused look met this retelling, and Blaine wondered why he found it so difficult to keep his foot away from his mouth for more than five minutes at a time.

"... Well, it was nice talking to you..."

"Oh, yes, it was... nice," she agrees quickly, snapping out of her confusion and trying to regain herself. "You wanted to come back, right?"

Blaine nodded, shrugging on his coat and tugging his bag strap over his shoulder in an effort to distract himself from feeling like an idiot. "Yeah. Can I come back the same time next week?"

"Of course you can!"

"You're... not going to write that down?"

Miss Pillsbury looks down rather sadly at the planner placed at a perfect angle on the right side of the desk. "Trust me, I'll remember. Not a lot of students make appointments, really. Unless it's to take my pamphlets."

Well, isn't that the whole point of having pamphlets in the first place? But Blaine decides to keep that to himself. "Very well then. I'll see you next week, right?"

"Yes! Definitely, go ahead."

* * *

><p>Emma doesn't actually expect Blaine to come back at all.<p>

But here he is, standing outside her office with Kurt Hummel (whom Emma still holds a slight grudge against for the Bambi incident; those shoes had never been the same). They're standing with their profiles facing the window, and Emma tries to look busy while stealing little glances up from the textbook she isn't reading. Blaine's shoulders are tense underneath his jacket, and his eyes are darting nervously around the hallway until Kurt says something, his expression a gentler form of the incredulous one he usually wore, and Blaine's face lights up. It's not overt or dramatic, just the soft curl of his mouth and a little spark in his eyes and it's effortless and endlessly sweet. Blaine hadn't said very much about his relationship with Kurt last week – and honestly, she doesn't expect him to – but he seems to be in a reverie of complete adoration. It is written all over his face as he interacts with Kurt, their fingers twining gently together, palm-to-palm as Blaine leans forward and Emma hurriedly glances down at her textbook again because she doesn't really need to see that.

She sees quite enough of _that side_ of teenage relationships already, thank you very much, and usually they only serve to make her even more depressed about her current situation. Will hadn't gone to Broadway after all, of course, and they had spoken over the summer, but Emma wasn't _sure_ about any of this; wanting to take it slow was an understatement. She's afraid of just being hurt again, and she doesn't think she can take that again without going completely mad. (Madder than usual, she thinks irritably.)

The door clicks shut and Emma jumps automatically, looking up from her thoughts and the textbook that had laid open on the same page for an hour to meet the eyes of Blaine. Blaine who was standing tall and strong today, a vibrant contrast to the visibly-shaking little boy who had slid down in his seat and tried to push everything away. It is striking, what vulnerability can do to a person. "Hey."

"Oh," she says. "Hi Blaine."

He smiles and nods at her, pulling off his coat and settling down in one of the seats (the right; most students do, since it's the closest to the door). There is a certain brightness in his face that makes Emma want to smile back wide and endless, and so she does. It does seem to be the fallout of being around a teenager in all of their naïve joys of first love. And oh, how she knows about that. "How are you?"

Well. That's not something she's often asked. "Um, I'm fine. I take it you're feeling better today?"

"Yeah, a lot, actually," Blaine says, his back resting against the chair with his posture smooth and relaxed. "I've been thinking a lot about what song I wanted to sing, so I've been pretty distracted. That's supposed to help, right?"

"It definitely can help with anxiety, if you preoccupy yourself with other activities," Emma nods in response, somewhat surprised. "You haven't had anything else happen at all?"

This time Blaine looks impressively pleased with himself. "Nope. I got my first slushie facial on Tuesday, though. Wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be, but... pretty cold. And my shirt is pretty much ruined. I guess I need to start following Kurt's advice of bringing a change of clothes to school."

Emma has never, ever seen anyone so darn _pleased_ to have had a cheap, artificially coloured (and that stains like nobody's business) ice drink thrown into their face. "And you were okay with that?"

Blaine shrugs, face adopting an unconcerned expression. "I've had worse before. I guess it was just... that whole situation that set me off. It's a pretty vivid image in my head." He licks his lip nervously, pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and suddenly he's vulnerable again and oh, Emma is supposed to be able to deal with this but wasn't there something he was here for?

"... Ah, weren't you wanting to sing something? Maybe... play guitar..." Emma says, trailing off as she leans a little further over her desk and realises that there are no guitar-shaped objects in the room. Unless Blaine happens to have some string and wants to empty out her tissue box. (He had better not, she thinks irritably; enough of her stuff is stolen from here as it is, and she doesn't want to have to add 'my tissue box' to the list.)

"I can't play guitar, actually," Blaine grins, suddenly easy again, as though he's had to explain many times before. "My dad told me I should learn an instrument when I was eight, so I picked piano instead of guitar like he wanted. I'll just sing unaccompanied, it's cool. ... Unless you have a back-up band behind your desk or something."

Emma finds herself laughing at Blaine's suddenly excited expression, like he really _does_ believe she keeps some sort of tiny musical quartet in one of her desk drawers. "Not really the kind of thing I keep back here, sorry."

"Oh well," he says, his smile gentle this time, and he hums the tune of an unknown song; it's soft under his breath as he presses the beat into his leg with one hand, and then he begins to sing.

_Grounded, five a.m., the night-light is comforting, but gravity is holding you..._

And it's smooth and clear, the lyrics unwavering and well-practised as Blaine sings, and Emma thinks that his voice is really quite lovely (but then, all the glee kids have wonderful voices).

_The story of your life across the ceiling_ –

Blaine is too high, the sound a little out of his range, but he smiles around the words and continues, eyeline somewhere above Emma's head. The song seems to come easily to him, as though he has practised carefully over and over, and she's somewhat touched that he cared so much to try so hard.

_'Good morning, and how are you? The weather's fine, the sky is blue, it's perfect for our seminar_ –'

But there's something curious about his performance; Emma's seen Blaine perform before once, as a guest judge for yet another boys versus girls competition (where she quietly suggests that Will maybe think up something different before the kids die of monotony) and there he knows how to play the audience, his movements confident and sure. Sitting here in her office, however – Blaine's voice is strong but there's something searching in his face. He's not looking at Emma, singing to the wall behind her with a soft expression clear in his eyes. She wonders what he's thinking about.

_You've said the air was singing; it's calling you, you don't believe these things you've never seen, never dreamed –_

The song is strangely sad-happy despite the warm tones of Blaine's singing voice, melancholy in a way Emma finds hard to put into words. She watches as he continues: _... this conceit, these systems of belief your counsellor agrees; 'You've always marked your boundaries, now you're free...'_ and Blaine looks at her momentarily – oh, counsellor! Clever. She thinks. Probably.

Emma's still not really sure what this is about, but Blaine is smiling through it a little, and that would seem to be a positive outcome.

_Once you had a dream of oceans and sunken cities, memories of things you have never known; and you have never known_ –

Blaine hums the ending for a few dragging seconds before falling silent, eyes closed and a little smile curling his lips. His shoulders are loose now, his entire posture lax and content; and Emma claps for both the song and that. (Blaine is really a very strong person, if he is so bright a week after having a panic attack in a crowded public school hallway.)

"Did you have someone in mind when you were singing?" she asks finally; partly because it's the only question she can think of to ask, and partly because she's genuinely curious.

"... Actually, I kind of wanted to sing it to Kurt," Blaine says, quietly. Emma isn't sure if she's supposed to be offended or not, so instead she frowns thoughtfully and nods for him to continue. "I can't really think of anyone else when I sing it. Kurt... Kurt makes me feel like I'm free, you know? He's amazing, but I don't know how to tell him that so I wanted to sing it instead. But..."

As Blaine speaks, his expression softens into the most enamoured sight Emma has ever seen sitting in her office; it's that curious cross between the fiercest joy and the most delicate vulnerability, his eyes bright and near delirious happiness. It's wonderfully genuine and Emma forgets for a moment that they're having a conversation, wondering if Will looks like that when he talks about her. (Maybe.) "But?"

"But given my track record for singing to people, I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Your track record?"

Blaine laughs nervously at that, hand coming up to rub distractedly at the back of his neck. "Just believe me when I say that I don't think Kurt wants me to do any big performances for him any time soon."

Emma immediately decides that she just doesn't want to know. Teenagers and their make-up, break-up dynamics confuse her enough already without getting into the sexuality logistics of it, too. "Ah... you could do a _small_ performance though, couldn't you?"

"A small performance...?" Blaine trails off thoughtfully, eyebrows furrowed as though he hadn't considered this before. "You mean not on a stage or anything?" he asks, unintentionally proving Emma's observation to be completely correct.

"Yes," Emma nods, once she's stopped giggling behind her hand. Blaine's expression has dropped slightly, and he probably knows she was laughing at him but it's too late to take it back now (and it _was_ very endearing; he is almost as clueless as Will, sometimes) so she continues. "Just, ah, sit him down. Maybe take his hands and just... sing to him, you know? Let all your feelings out, it can't hurt."

The idea reminds her of Will, who loves singing her Broadway classics softly in her ear, his hands on her waist pressing their bodies close together and it's so overwhelmingly intimate – Emma feels her skin warming and hopes that Blaine doesn't notice. Why did she have to think about Will at times like this? She was trying to be professional and all she could think about was – stuff. Unrelated stuff. She had no idea if Kurt would even like being sung to as much as she did.

However, when she managed to focus on the topic at hand again, Blaine didn't seem to mind (or have noticed anything at all). "I," he says softly, a shy smile curling his lips as he looks at the floor momentarily. When he looks back up, that look is in his eyes again. "... I think I'd like that."

Blaine pokes his head around the door the following Monday, and he doesn't even need to say anything for Emma to understand what happened; his eyes are bright with joy.


End file.
